Monday, July 13, 2015

Southern Supper in Philly...



Alabama Dinner at the Fat Ham
3131 Walnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19104

When Kevin Sbraga was traveling to do research for the Fat Ham with his team, they were posting videos of their Southern road trip. They seemed to be having a great time, and they were definitely eating really well, so when I heard that they were inviting two chefs from Alabama up to cook for a night at the Fat Ham, I grabbed a couple tickets and invited a friend to come with me and my fiancé. We also had the pleasure of sharing the meal with the sommelier of the Central Kitchen Sam Fonte. We talked a lot that night, and it was a pleasure sharing that meal with him. All evening they were serving alcoholic sweet tea and lemonades in true southern fashion. It made me very nostalgic for my time at Elon.




The menu for the evening looked amazing. It was a four course dinner that really was an eight course dinner, because you got two different dishes at every course. First course from Chef Leonardo Maurelli of Central Kitchen in Alabama were marinated blue crab claws with Alabama corn and heirloom tomato and hominy fritters with cotija cheese tostones, pork jowl bacon and sofrito. While I enjoyed the crab claws, I found myself getting frustrated with them after a while because you do so much work to get the tiniest amount of meat out of them. They flavor was great, and I especially liked the corn and tomato with it. The pork jowl dish was out of this world. It was one of most delicious pieces of meat I have ever had. It was like bacon kicked up to another level. It was smoky and fatty, meaty and delicious with a slight hint of sweetness to go with the crispy char on its edges. It was outstanding. I am always a sucker for tostones and although hominy fritters are new to me, they are welcome on my plate at any time.




Our second course was offerings from Chef de Cuisine of the Fat Ham Aaron Gottesman. While I was not expecting to get a pasta course from him in a southern themed dinner, that was exactly what we got. Black pepper papardelle with rabbit confit, fava beans and locatelli cheese made for one hell of a dish. Southern or not, that dish was just damn tasty. It was creamy, yet light, and the rabbit added a great heartiness to the dish as well. I wasn’t as crazy about the salad course he served us however. While it wasn’t bad by any means, I just didn’t think it was all that good. The pig ear was great, it was super crispy, but it was tough to chew and cut. I didn’t get much dressing on mine at all, so maybe that is why I thought it wasn’t that great. It was supposed to come with fig vinaigrette and sunflower seeds, but they were pretty sparse.




Third courses came out next from chef Rob McDaniel, and there were two of the best of the evening. First up was a slow roasted porchetta with crispy skin and a field pea and cherry tomato salad that was out of this world. The pork had been roasted for so long that it might as well have just dissolved when you put it in your mouth. It was so succulent and tender, I could have eaten mountains of it, and my god that skin. Crispy, crackly and salty beyond imagination, it was an amazing amount of flavor and texture to go with the pork. The second part of his course was the poached Louisiana gulf shrimp with gribiche and jumbo asparagus. The shrimp were cooked every so lightly and intensely flavored with the gribiche. The asparagus while humongous were also cooked perfectly and left very tender. I was so full at this point, they could have already rolled me out of there. 




Kevin Sbraga finished us off strong that evening with a buttermilk chess pie with lemon Chantilly cream and fried rosemary and a blackberry cobbler with goat cheese sorbet. I never knew Chef Sbraga has such a deft hand with desserts, but there were two pretty fantastic desserts. I had never even heard of buttermilk chess pie during my time in the South, and after tasting it, I was super disappointed that I didn’t know about it while I was there. It was amazing! It’s a custard based pie that gets browned on top and is incredibly rich. It tasted like the South in each and every bite. Cobbler of any kind immediately makes me think of the South, and this particular blackberry one was spot on. The one difference with this was the goat cheese sorbet. It was supremely different than traditional vanilla ice cream that you usually get with cobblers, so it actually kept it light and fresh all the way through because of the tanginess of the goat cheese that made it feel much more savory than sweet.




If you haven’t been to the Fat Ham before, you may not know how charming this little restaurant is. It is even more charming when you have the whole place filled with awesome chefs that really know what they are doing and are just having an awesome time together. I loved checking out the Alabama dinner they hosted, and I encourage you to keep an eye out for similar events held there going forward! Cheers!

No comments:

Post a Comment

About Me

My photo
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States
I am a food lover living in Philadelphia.

Followers